New Specification Created by Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, VMware,
XenSource Aims to Become an Industry Standard; Will Help Ensure
Portability, Integrity and Automated Installation/Configuration of
Virtual Machines

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF®)
today announced the acceptance of a draft specification submitted by
leading virtualization companies targeting an industry standard format
for portable virtual machines. Virtual machines packaged in this format
can be installed on any virtualization platform that supports the
standard – simplifying interoperability,
security and virtual machine lifecycle management for virtual
infrastructures.

“This capability will
become increasingly important as customers turn to automation solutions
that take risk and cost out of data center operations.”

The companies behind the collaboration on this specification include
Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, VMware, and XenSource. This group of
virtualization industry leaders has submitted the specification to the
DMTF for development into an industry standard. DMTF is the industry
organization leading the development, adoption and promotion of
interoperable management initiatives and standards. DMTF will continue
to develop this technology into a successful, open industry standard and
promote it worldwide.

The proposed format, called the Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF), uses
existing packaging tools to combine one or more virtual machines
together with a standards-based XML wrapper, giving the virtualization
platform a portable package containing all required installation and
configuration parameters for the virtual machines. This allows any
virtualization platform that implements the standard to correctly
install and run the virtual machines.

“With the increasing demand for virtualization
in enterprise management, the new spec developed through this
industry-wide collaboration dove-tails nicely into existing
virtualization management standardization activity within the DMTF,”
said Winston Bumpus, DMTF president. “OVF
extends the work we have underway to offer IT managers automation of
critical, error-prone activities in the deployment of a virtualized
infrastructure.”

Most importantly, OVF specifies procedures and technologies to permit
integrity checking of the virtual machines (VM) to ensure that they have
not been modified since the package was produced. This enhances the
security of the format and will alleviate security concerns of users who
adopt virtual appliances produced by third parties. OVF also provides
mechanisms that support license checking for the enclosed VMs,
addressing a key concern of both independent software vendors (ISVs) and
customers. Finally, OVF allows an installed VM to acquire information
about its host virtualization platform and run-time environment, which
allows the VM to localize the applications it contains and optimize its
performance for the particular virtualization environment.

“The impact of OVF will extend far beyond the
participating server virtualization vendors to include the entire ISV
community. With OVF, an ISV can potentially ship its solutions as a
single virtual deployment package that is capable of running on any
hypervisor,” said Chris Wolf, senior analyst
with Burton Group. “OVF marks a new era in
virtualization – one which includes
never-seen-before interoperability in the enterprise. The whole IT
community collectively stands to benefit from this landmark standard.”

In addition to providing portability, integrity, and configurability of
existing virtual hard disk formats. OVF is also extensible to support
future developments of virtual hard disk formats whose specifications
are openly available.

By collaborating on the development of the OVF specification, the group
aims to make it easier for IT organizations to pre-package and certify
software packaged as virtual machine templates for deployment in their
virtualized infrastructure and to facilitate the secure distribution of
pre-packaged virtual appliances by ISVs and virtual appliance vendors.
Ultimately, the group’s goal is to eliminate
the need for IT managers to separately install, configure and manage
interdependencies between virtualized operating systems and
applications, by enabling automated management of the virtual machine
lifecycle.

“Dell is committed to simplifying
virtualization management by working with the industry to develop
standards which provide ease of deployment. The Open Virtual Machine
Format submission is an important packaging format which will enable the
simplified deployment of virtual appliances. We are pleased to
contribute to the development of OVF as a major component of Dell’s
vision to Simplify IT,” said Brent Schroeder,
Director of Enterprise Software Technology at Dell, Inc.

“HP supports the creation of a
vendor-agnostic standard to help our customers with the rollout and
management of virtual appliances,” said
Paul Gottsegen, vice president of marketing, Enterprise Storage and
Servers Software, HP. “This capability will
become increasingly important as customers turn to automation solutions
that take risk and cost out of data center operations.”

“IBM is dedicated to helping our clients
exploit the many benefits of virtualization with comprehensive solutions
to manage their entire environments including virtual and physical
machines and virtual appliances,” said Rich
Lechner, VP of IT Optimization for IBM. “The
OVF proposal, by joining together key virtualization vendors, is an
important step towards enabling client benefits while maintaining
flexibility and allowing them freedom of vendor choice.”

“Microsoft is committed to the
interoperability of virtualization infrastructure, and we believe the
DMTF is the best place to drive this type of industry standard,”
said Mike Neil, general manager of virtualization strategy at Microsoft
Corp. “OVF complements Microsoft’s
open Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format and the strong ecosystem of vendors
that now support it. Microsoft continues to be an active member of the
DMTF virtualization management efforts and we see the OVF as a natural
extension of our existing standardization work in this area.”

“VMware’s
participation in and contribution to the Open Virtual Machine Format
(OVF) reinforces our commitment to open, industry standards for
virtualization. The OVF specification and its key principles of
interoperability and portability are intended to be an enabler to
virtual appliances as well as to the evolution of the virtualization
market. End users and software vendors have been clear that they need to
be able to leverage standards such as OVF and avoid proprietary formats
and licensing that lock them to a single vendor or platform,”
said Dr. Stephen Herrod, Vice President of Technology Development at
VMware, Inc.

“XenSource has found that as virtualization
becomes a mainstream component of enterprise IT infrastructure,
customers need ways to automate and secure the development, distribution
and deployment of their virtual machines and virtual appliances,”
said Simon Crosby, CTO of XenSource, Inc. “This
collaboration between the leading virtualization vendors to develop a
portable virtual machine format addresses a key customer concern –
allowing them to broadly adopt multi-vendor virtualization solutions
without worrying about differing proprietary formats. OVF also
guarantees the integrity of virtual machines, while respecting the
licensing policies of OS and application vendors.”

About the DMTF

With more than 4,000 active participants representing 44 countries and
nearly 200 organizations, the Distributed Management Task Force, Inc.
(DMTF) is the industry organization leading the development, adoption
and promotion of interoperable management standards and initiatives.
DMTF management technologies are critical to enabling management
interoperability among multi-vendor systems, tools, and solutions within
the enterprise. By deploying solutions that support DMTF standards, IT
managers can choose to deploy a mix of systems and solutions that best
meet their users’ needs, while reducing
management complexity and total cost of ownership. Information about the
DMTF technologies and activities can be found at www.dmtf.org.